Britomart's Sustainability Report Card: how did we do on our 2023 goals?

Cooper and Company’s Director of Sustainability and Brand Sarah Hull met with a range of potential suppliers to understand the process of a material issues assessment. With a greater understanding of the process, it was decided to invest in equipping members of the Cooper and Company sustainability team with the skills to undertake material issues assessments for Britomart, as well as other companies under the Cooper and Company umbrella.

Engineering consultants Norman Disney & Young were commissioned to assist with achieving a WELL Performance rating. Air monitors have been installed on each level of the Maritime Building, which measure the particulate matter (PM), volatile organic compounds, levels of carbon dioxide and humidity in the air. As part of the monitoring, intermittent issues with air quality in the building have been identified, and a process of elimination has been undertaken to better understand the source of the issues. The Maritime Building is currently having its roof replaced and will be closed from January to June 2024. As part of this renovation, adaptations may be made to improve air quality. Further monitoring and testing will be undertaken when the building is reopened, with the aim to submit data for a WELL Performance certification in Q4 2024.

Our careers orientation collaboration kicked off at the end of March 2023, with the first of three monthly careers days held for a total of 30 students in Years 12 and 13. Students visited a range of businesses to get a sense for the areas of work that might interest them. Subsequently, five students undertook a minimum of six days work experience each at a range of Britomart businesses, including EY and Cooper and Company. Next year, we intend to build on the success of this programme to encourage more students to take part in both the careers days and the work experience opportunities. Read more about the value this project created for both the students and the businesses involved in our interviews with EY’s Chad Paraone and Hare Rua from Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Hoani Waititi Marae on pages 50 and 52.

We held six art exhibitions around the precinct, including NZ Geographic Photographer of the Year, a Matariki exhibition featuring kapa haka students from Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Hoani Waititi Marae, artworks by young takatāpui as part of Te Tīmatanga for Auckland Pride, and poetry in association with the Auckland Writers Festival. We also held a series of freestyle dance battles, two performances of contemporary Samoan dance during the Late Night Art festival and a series of K-Pop performances in Takutai Square. Many of these exhibitions had a focus on celebrating people who are Māori and Pasifika, takatāpui and rangatahi, as well as on contemporary New Zealand culture and environment. These events also saw good engagement on social media, with one TikTok video featuring kapa haka performers achieving more than 1.4 million views.

We held three Neighbourhood Drinks events where we invited members of the local business community to join us for free drinks, nibbles and talks from interesting speakers. In February, takatāpui artists whose works appeared around Britomart during the Pride festival spoke; in May Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei’s Kīngi Makoare talked about Waihorotiu, the river that once ran down Queen Street; and in September urban trees expert Justin Morgenroth spoke about urban reforestation as part of the Auckland Climate Festival. We also held two Britomart Breakfast talks for the business community; one on making digital meetings more effective and another on what workplace loneliness is and how to combat it.

We submitted the year’s data to Toitū Envirocare in August and are awaiting auditing confirmation and certification. Based on the unaudited results, this year our carbon-equivalent emissions decreased by 40 percent overall, largely due to a significant reduction in refrigerant losses, better refrigerant loss reporting and improvements in energy efficiency in some large buildings.

Members of our sustainability, communications, operations and The Hotel Britomart teams continued to work together in early 2023 to understand the outcomes of all waste streams currently operating at Britomart and to look for ways to encourage more efficient operation. The communications team then created a Managing Waste Well guide, which was distributed to lease partners by the operations and facilities teams. Managing waste well remains an ongoing project in Britomart.

Each upcoming building or renovation project at Britomart will be assessed for suitability of PV panels for solar energy generation. After investigation, Maritime House was deemed unsuitable for solar installation.

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